On "The ‘Doodles’ in Context: Qualifying Claims About Contrastive Rhetoric"

In her article “The ‘Doodles’ in Context: Qualifying Claims About Contrastive Rhetoric” Carol Severino is somewhat self-contradictory. She is extremely hard on Kaplan and then does not provide enough information of her own to justify this criticism.
She begins by saying that Kaplan’s article is not “wholly erroneous” (44) but states that it is important that “writing center communities realize that the case [in the doodles article] needs to be, and in fact has already been, to some extent qualified” (45). She further notes that, “Kaplan himself admitted that he had overstated the case although he asserted that he did not regret having made the case” (45). These brief recognitions that Kaplan’s article was not all bad and that even he acknowledged that it could use some revision do not give Kaplan enough credit. Of course there are going to be numerous issues with Kaplan’s article; it was one of the first to address the issue of contrastive rhetoric at all and it was written in 1966 when little other information existed. It follows that there would be some problems with Kaplan’s study, and it should probably not be used as anything more than a starting point, but Severino is too critical of Kaplan’s mistakes and does not appreciate his contributions enough.
While it may be true that since he wrote the article Kaplan’s work has been shown to contain numerous flaws, it is unfair to critique a 50-year-old study based on modern standards. Severino veers too far into criticism when she should stick to making “qualifying” statements as she suggests she will do in the beginning. Kaplan’s work may not contain entirely valid information about different types of rhetoric but his work is valuable because of the discussion it launched. Severino mentions another more recent study and says that its “design, methods, and stance improve upon Kaplan’s in many ways; native language discourse is examined (not just ESL writing or translations of native language writing); genre, age, and class background are controlled for; and a complex discourse analysis is performed, taking into account content features which are as revealing of cultural differences as organizational features. No discourse analysis was mentioned in Kaplan’s 1966 study” (48). She points out important factors that are missing from Kaplan’s work but rather than harshly criticizing him for not including these things she should recognize that he could not possibly get everything right in one of the first examinations of cultural differences in rhetoric. She should see that Kaplan’s work was an important first step that allowed future studies to observe what one first attempt looked like and then improve upon its flaws in order to do better work themselves.
When there is an attempt to research something specific in a field, like contrastive rhetoric, there will likely be a long research process before the most accurate and useful information is uncovered. Kaplan took one of the first steps in examining contrastive rhetoric so it makes sense that his study would be one of the most flawed. This does not mean that his study is not worthwhile; rather it is the study that allowed future studies to produce better results.
Thus, Severino is much too disparaging of Kaplan’s work. She spends a lot of time noting what is wrong with his study and does not leave herself much room to suggest improvements. In fact she spends a great deal of time talking about Chinese rhetoric and in the end her conclusion is that “The situation is too complex for…generalizations” (54). In a way this is no conclusion at all, and at least Kaplan come up with some conclusion even if it was not infallible. Severino should have put more effort into trying to contribute valuable information to the field and building on previous work rather than critiquing it.

Works Cited: “The ‘Doodles’ in Context: Qualifying Claims About Contrastive Rhetoric" by Carol Severino